The love story of Princess Margaret, Elizabeth’s younger sister, and Antony Armstrong-Jones, was just as dramatic in real life as what’s depicted on The Crown’s second season.

Huty2022807

By Len Trievnor/Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

As promised in a sultry photo shoot released earlier this year, The Crown’s second season dives headlong into the intense relationship between Princess Margaret (played by Vanessa Kirby) and Antony Armstrong-Jones (Matthew Goode), the photographer who became Lord Snowdon when he married Margaret in 1960. Their romance and marriage is the center of two of the most daring episodes of The Crown’s second season, which draw from the many things that are known about their explosive relationship—and infers some of the most dramatic details about what nobody but Margaret and Snowdon can know for sure. Below, a look at the true story of Margaret and Snowdon, and how it matches up with what happens on The Crown.

And for a much more comprehensive recounting of their relationship, read this excerpt from Anne de Courcy’s 2008 book Snowdon: The Biography, which will be cited extensively below.

But first, Billy Wallace. When Margaret first rejoins the action in The Crown’s second season, having essentially sat out the first three episodes, she’s a stone-faced guest at a wedding, still single and telling her friend Billy Wallace, “No one wants to take me on, apparently.” He then pulls out a spur-of-the-moment proposal, arguing that as her “old faithful” he would be a sensible, if not entirely romantic, husband. In real life, Wallace was in fact one of Margaret’s “favored escorts,” as described by de Courcy; in a 2002 piece for The Telegraph,Andrew Alderson wrote that Margaret decided to marry Wallace because it was better to marry “somebody one at least liked.” Their engagement ended not with the drunken duel depicted on The Crown, but with a brief affair he had on a trip to the Bahamas. It also happened a year before Margaret and Armstrong-Jones began seeing each other in 1958. The result, however, was the same: Princess Margaret was unforgiving, and decided she could do better.

How they met. As depicted in both seasons of The Crown, Margaret was an active fixture in London’s high-class social scene, which makes it easy to believe she asked her lady-in-waiting, Elizabeth Cavendish, to introduce her to anyone but a man who “breeds horses, owns land, or knows my mother.“ Antony Armstrong-Jones fit the description, but by the time he and Margaret began spending time together in the spring of 1958, he was already acquainted with the royal family. In 1957, he had taken portraits of the Queen and her family on the grounds of Buckingham Palace—something he would continue to do for decades, even after his and Margaret’s divorce. So while the dinner-party meet-cute depicted on The Crown is fairly close to reality, his relationship with the royal family had already begun.

The portrait of Margaret. The fourth episode of The Crown’s second season ends with a stunning image of Princess Margaret, a portrait taken by Armstrong-Jones in which she appears to be naked, and which she, in a fit of rebelliousness, sent to The Times of London to be splashed across the country. The photograph on The Crown is a faithful recreation of one of the most famous portraits of Princess Margaret, but there’s a catch: the real one was taken in 1967, when Armstrong-Jones and Margaret were already married and known as the Lord and Countess of Snowdon. Vanessa Kirby’s recreation of the portrait, though, remains stunning.

His other affairs. As with many personal relationships, not everything about Armstrong-Jones’s personal life is on the record. After he began seeing Margaret, he definitely remained involved with the actress and dancer Jacqui Chan—depicted in an unusually graphic sex scene in The Crown’s seventh episode—whom de Courcy describes as “Tony’s first real love.” As Michael Adeane and Tommy Lascelles inform the Queen on The Crown when she begins to have doubts about her sister’s relationship, Armstrong-Jones was also involved with Gina Ward at the same time as Princess Margaret, as late as the summer of 1959—though the third woman mentioned on The Crown, his secretary, Robin Banks, is said by de Courcy to have been in love with someone else.

The most vividly depicted relationship on the show, and the one that would cause scandal even today, is the one with married couple Jeremy and Camilla Fry. The two were among Armstrong-Jones’s closest friends, though the existence of a romantic relationship between all three of them is difficult to prove. Armstrong-Jones was suspected, even by Princess Margaret, of having homosexual leanings; “I enjoyed his company very much, but I didn’t take a lot of notice of him because I thought he was queer,” she later told her biographer Christopher Warwick, as recounted in de Courcy’s book. Jeremy Fry had to step down from his role as Armstrong-Jones’s best man at his wedding to Princess Margaret after the press discovered he had been arrested in 1952 for “a minor homosexual offense.” (The reason given in the press at the time, according to de Courcy, was a recurrence of jaundice.) And Camilla Fry, as depicted in The Crown, gave birth to a daughter, Polly, in May 1960, just weeks after Armstrong-Jones married Princess Margaret. In 2004, Polly Fry took a DNA test, as revealed in de Courcy’s book, that proved Snowdon was, in fact, her father. She wrote in a op-ed for the Daily Mail in 2008, “Although we may like to think of our own generation as being wild and wonderful, in comparison to what our parents got up to in the swinging 60s we are mere innocents caught up in the aftermath of the postwar free-love era.”

Peter Townsend moves on. Group Captain Peter Townsend, whose doomed affair with Princess Margaret gave The Crown season 1 much of its drama, did announce his engagement to Marie-Luce Jamagne, then 19 years old, in 1959, and he broke the news to Margaret in a letter. According to de Courcy, however, Margaret received the letter while she and Armstrong-Jones were together at Balmoral castle in October 1959, and at the time she encouraged Armstrong-Jones not to propose, to cement the public’s impression that she was fully over Townsend.

The proposal. According to de Courcy, the engagement became official while Margaret and Armstrong-Jones were staying with the Frys, and Armstrong-Jones sought approval from the Queen over Christmas. The romantic proposal depicted on The Crown, with the boxes within boxes, may be entirely fictional, although Margaret’s ring was a large ruby, which according to de Courcy cost £250.

The delayed announcement. Elizabeth did ask her sister to delay the announcement of her engagement until after the birth of Prince Andrew in February 1960. The engagement was announced six days later, on February 26.

The conga line. One of the most delightful details in de Courcy’s book made it straight to the screen in The Crown—at a party at Clarence House in October 1959, according to de Courcy, the Queen Mother asked Margaret and her future son-in-law to lead a conga line up and down the stairs.

Antony Armstrong-Jones’s complicated childhood.The Crown scarcely has room for more complicated lineages and royal titles—but it makes valuable time to dive into Armstrong-Jones’s background, his childhood bout with polio, and his complex relationship with his mother, the Countess of Rosse, whom de Courcy says referred to Tony as “my ugly son” and was thrilled by his upwardly mobile marriage to Margaret. His father, Ronnie Armstrong-Jones, a lawyer, was less enthusiastic; according to de Courcy, he sent his son a note that said “Boy, you would be mad to marry Princess Margaret—it will ruin your career.”

The wedding. Held at Westminster Abbey on May 6, Margaret and Tony’s was the first royal wedding to be televised, and the guests did include his ex Jacqui Chan, as well as his mother and two stepmothers. Winston Churchill was also there. According to de Courcy, Margaret did not invite any of the staff at Clarence House who had cared for her over the years, and her departure to life as a married women was a welcome one. De Courcy writes: “As Margaret passed him where he stood on the top step as the glass coach waited to take her to Westminster Abbey, Gordon bowed and said, ‘Good-bye, Your Royal Highness,’ adding as the coach pulled away, ‘and we hope forever.’”

In a May 1960 feature on the wedding, Life magazine wrote “from babyhood she had been the darling of a nation,” and that the people of England “lately, like a caucus of fidgety parents, they had openly fretted because their princess was approaching 30 and spinsterhood.” After tsk-tsking about the “wildly unconventional union” between Margaret and the photographer “who had led a life sufficiently exuberant to be called ‘bohemian,’” Life gave in to the excitement: “The doting millions were electrified and delighted,” the magazine conceded.

Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon’s 18 Stylish Years of Marriage, in Photos

1960

Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones, a fashion photographer who rode a motorbike, announced their engagement on the grounds of the Royal Lodge on February 27, 1960.

From Getty Images.

1960

The Queen had her corgis, but Princess Margaret had her King Charles Spaniel, Rowley.

From Central Press/Getty Images.

1960

The two were married in Westminster Abbey on May 6. Princess Margaret wore Norman Hartnell, couturier to the royals, and the Poltimore Tiara.

From Bettmann Collection.

1960

Princess Margaret and Armstrong-Jones, now referred to as Lord Snowdon, return from their honeymoon in the Caribbean.

From Daily Mail/REX/Shutterstock.

1960

The pair made a splash at London’s Royal Opera House in March, shortly after they were engaged.

From Sampson/Daily Mail/REX/Shutterstock.

1961

Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon announced the birth of their son, David, outside of Clarence House with the Queen Mother.

From AFP/Getty Images.

1962

Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon watch the Badminton Horse Trials along with her nephew Prince Charles and her sister, Queen Elizabeth II.

By Reginald Davis/REX/Shutterstock.

1962

The couple on their way to Bath for a quiet weekend away from royal work.

By Edwin Sampson/Daily Mail/REX/Shutterstock.

1964

Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon leave Kensington Palace to take their daughter, Sarah, to her christening ceremony.

From Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

1965

The Beatles meet the royal couple at the world premiere of their film Help! at the London Pavilion in July.

From Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images.

1962

The couple dances at the Canadian Universities Ball at Quaglino’s, a favorite Italian restaurant in London. Rumors of affairs on either side had begun to swirl around them.

From Popperfoto/Getty Images.

1965

The pair makes a stop at the Lincoln Memorial on a tour of the U.S.

From Keystone/Getty Images.

1965

The couple visited Lewis Douglas, former U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, in Tucson, Arizona.

From Getty Images.

1965

Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon attend a lunch at the Amstel Hotel in Amsterdam. It was held in their honor by Queen Juliana.

From Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images.

1965

The couple pose with President Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson in the Queen’s room at the White House. The dinner-dance was given in honor of the princess and Lord Snowdon.

From Bettmann Collection.

1967

Dancing at the Canadian Women’s Club Centenary Ball at Grosvenor House in London.

By Len Trievnor/Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

1968

The two recline in a plastic ball at something called a cybernetic exhibition in London.

From Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images.

1968

Lord Snowdon and Margaret tour Italy in the summer.

From Getty Images.

1968

The two tour a hovercraft named after Princess Margaret. The Princess Margaret would appear in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever three years later.

From Fox Photos/Getty Images.

1969

David and Sarah play with their parents on the lawns of Kensington Palace in August.

From Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images.

1970

Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon once again at the Badminton Horse Trials.

From Fox Photos/Getty Images.

1971

Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon head out from the airport on their way to Canada. They opened the Winnipeg Art Gallery, which is still open today.

From Popperfoto/Getty Images.

1967

The couple took a trip to the Bahamas, one of Margaret’s favorite places.

From Dalmas/AFP/Getty Images.

Get Vanity Fair’s Cocktail Hour.It’s our essential daily brief on culture, the news, and more. And it’s on the house.